Why PAs should have health insurance… or how Blue Shield of California can suck a dick
August 21, 2008
So. Because being a PA is freelance, you have to get your own health insurance seperately from any production company you work for. But last April, mine, (Blue Shield of California) decided to drop me because my credit card was close to the limit and a payment didn’t go through. As opposed to calling/emailing/sending me a letter about this, they did nothing, just quietly took me off their list. I have automatic payment on my card, so I never really look at the transactions unless they’re way off what I expect them to be. So I didn’t notice that I wasn’t getting charged until a few weeks ago when I got a bill for a few hundred dollars from a doctor’s visit. I called in a frenzy, we figured out the problem and I had to reapply and also submit an appeal to have my insurance restarted. I just got a letter in the mail saying that my application for coverage was denied, so now I am fully dependent on the appeal going through.
I was just denied health insurance from Blue Shield of California for two reasons:
1. “unexplained fatigue”
2. “additional concern is depression”
Well you glorified telemarketing FUCKS, maybe if you got off your asses and worked a 14 hour day on your feet, then came home and spent time pursuing a dream career of writing and performing comedy every night, then you might be able to explain some of that fatigue… but that would involve having some kind of goal or ambition besides a midlife crisis when you’re 40 and realizing you didn’t have the balls or talent to go after something you were passionate about besides watching TV and getting fat. You’re the unimaginative, smug townie that married your highschool sweatheart and puts Cathy cartoon clippings from the Sunday paper in your cubicle to mask the fact that you don’t see sunlight from 9-5, 5 days a week… you are the fatted cows for the American Dreams of mediocrity and sloth. So I’m tired and overworked, and I told that to my old doctor, who decided that it was a concern that a 24 year old girl was pushing herself to be all she could be instead of giving up and getting 10 hours of sleep a night.
And I do have depression. Want to know why, asshole? My grandmother, the woman who was a second mother to me, who basically raised me and taught me everything that I value and am proud of in myself, died suddenly a little over a year and a half ago, right before I moved to California. I stayed home until after Christmas, but knew if I didn’t leave then, then I never would and I would regret it. But California is a cold, lonely place if you don’t have good friends to surround you when you need them, and being 3,000 miles away from a family torn apart by grief is hard for anyone. So I got a therapist to help me cope with it, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I grow as a person every day and am happier than I have been in a long time… but depression is still apparently written on my medical charts.
I don’t drink, never have. I don’t smoke, never will. I have never touched a drug a day in my life. I exercise every single day. I watch what I eat. I’m not overweight. I have not been sick in over a year. I am a good kid. I am extremely healthy. Yet you won’t give me health insurance? Why am I being punished for taking the road less travelled? Does something about me scare you, big corporation? I’m sorry I’m honest and in touch with my feelings and I don’t drown them out with $2 happy hours and reruns of American Idol.
Shame on you. Go fuck yourselves.
go girl….corporate whatever whether in Europe or USA stinks. Unfortunately, everything is tuned to the lowest common denominator and we hard working types just get dragged along with the bottom feeders. Money buys privacy and freedom which is why it is so important. You don’t have money, you don’t have anything.
Brandie, if you focus in more on commercials you can get covered by the Producer’s Health Benefit Plan (PHBP) for free. It’s better coverage and you won’t have to worry because they don’t care about pre-existing conditions. You have to work a minimum of 100 days per year for qualifying commercial companies to qualify.
The website is http://www.phbp.org/
Your other options are start a PA union or vote for Obama and cross your fingers he’ll do what he says.
I hope you don’t get sick this year. (But if you do - go to a public or Catholic hospital or clinic - they won’t refuse you.)
I think this is the hardest part about being freelance. Even though our lives can be so difficult - always looking for the next job - working extremely hard at each job we get - managing bills and such in the meantime - and pursuing our dreams in the extra few hours left in the week, the business side of the country considers us transients making a quick buck and bumming around.
It’s also twice as hard because many of us are learning how the real world works at the same time as all the rest of this. Endure. No one can keep you from pursuing your life, but they can be an extreme pain in the ass along the way. I hear really good things about the PHPB. Good luck and good health.
Excellent blog, Brandie, reflecting the plight of millions of Americans. An Obama victory is our best hope.
i don’t know, man. i would blame the doctor or the insurance policy makers, not the guy who had to deny your claim over the phone. it would suck so utterly to work at blue cross, at least for the people who are in charge of answering your phone call (i’m sure the execs have a good time and are mostly jerks, to be sure). my friends who work at companies like that work hard and don’t do anything creative but they’re not dumb. and i don’t think they’re worthless or ambitionless for staying in the midwest or not wanting to be a writer like me.
sorry. we should all have health care, especially PA’s and assistants, who get the short end of the stick ALWAYS. i agree with you so much on that point and i appreciate your perspective. it just gives me chest pains when i see rants about middle americans who work boring office jobs and what lemmings they are. a lot of them are ok, and all of them go to the movies we’re all trying to make. And fuck, they put cheese in EVERYTHING over there, so the fat thing is difficult for them to avoid. have you been to a perkins? it is rough stuff.
the people who made the guy in the cubicle with the cathy cartoon tell you you were denied are on my shit list, though. i will punch them right between the face as soon as they come in from the golf course.
Hey,
As someone who has just stumbled upon your blog, a new resident of LA, another kid trying to eek it out being a PA and someone who does not drink or smoke I wanted to ask something. Has your decision to not drink or smoke inhibit you in this industry? I don’t and I know it makes for awkward conversation and social settings.
Just wanted to know.
-smokey